Official: U.S. won't extradite CIA agents to Italy

March 01, 2007|By Craig Whitlock, The Washington Post.

BERLIN — The State Department's top lawyer said Wednesday that the United States would refuse to extradite CIA officers who face kidnapping charges in Italy, warning that European criminal prosecutions of U.S. agents would harm trans-Atlantic counterterrorism efforts.

An Italian court issued indictments against 25 CIA operatives and a U.S. Air Force officer on Feb. 16, charging them with kidnapping a radical Muslim cleric in Milan four years ago. Although the Italian government has not made a final decision on whether to ask the U.S. to extradite the defendants, State Department legal adviser John Bellinger said the request would be rejected regardless.

"If we got an extradition request from Italy, we would not extradite U.S. officials to Italy," Bellinger told reporters in Brussels, where he was meeting with European Union officials.

Bellinger's statement was the first time a U.S. government official has directly addressed the Italian criminal investigation, which is expected to produce the first overseas trial of CIA officers involved in a covert counterterrorism operation.

The trial is scheduled to open June 8 in Milan. Italian prosecutors say they will try the American defendants in absentia, if necessary. Five Italian spies, including the former head of military intelligence, also have been charged.

In a separate case, a German court issued arrest warrants Jan. 31 for 13 CIA operatives accused of kidnapping a German citizen in Macedonia in December 2003. German authorities have said they are unlikely to formally request extradition or go to trial. But the ongoing European criminal investigations and other investigations into CIA activity on the continent have soured relations with the Bush administration.